D APPENDIX. 



The present month brings with it the thirty-ninth number 

 of the second series, and within this as yet brief career of its 

 existence, nearly two hundred of those with whom Natural 

 History forms a leading study or an occasional recreation, have 

 registered their observations on its pages. Large as this num- 

 ber is, the amount itself carries with it no peculiar virtue ; but 

 considering how great is the proportion upon the list, whose 

 scientific reputation is firmly established, and that it in- 

 cludes many of the most distinguished naturalists of the 

 day, I cannot help feeling that my original ambition has 

 been even more than realized. But could I then have known 

 what I now know, of the history of scientific natural-history 

 periodicals ; — could I have foreseen the nerve that sometimes 

 must be exercised, when, single-handed, and without exten- 

 sive resources, an editor determines, under all circumstances, 

 and at all hazards, to follow one undeviating course of fear- 

 less independence ; — I should indeed have shrunk from what 

 I was undertaking. 



Disappointments have occurred to me, that no share of 

 foresight could have averted ; and attempts have occasionally 

 been made to crush the Magazine, in quarters where they 

 might least have been expected to originate : but still, I en- 

 tertain the idea, that it will never prove to me a source of 

 regret, that I should have stepped forward to carry on a peri- 

 odical, of which the sphere of usefulness might otherwise 

 have been suspended. The dark spots on the surface of the 

 picture, are not so numerous as to obscure the brighter por- 

 tions. And at whatever period the relation in which I now 

 stand to a large and influential section of British natural- 

 ists, may be destined to terminate, — the intellectual enjoy- 

 ment that I have derived from intercourse with those who, 

 in many instances, previously unknown to me, have so cor- 

 dially seconded the promotion of my object, must always 

 form a bright page in the book of retrospection. 



I have spoken of the establishment of two journals in the 

 year 1836, devoted to Natural History, and both of these 

 were critically noticed by me in the first number of the Ma- 

 gazine which was issued with my name as its responsible 

 Editor. ' Of the merits of the * Magazine of Zoology and Bo- 

 tany' I expressed the highest opinion; at the same time freely 

 commenting on what I conceived to be the demerits of its 

 cotemporary, the * Naturalist.' I believed these two periodi- 

 cals to differ, also, no less in relation to the ultimate objects 



iQf the first series, tlie three last numbers only were edited by myself, 

 previously to which I had no connection with the work. 



i 



